100 FICTION BON VOYAGE, MR.. PR.E5IDENT H E sat on a wooden bench under the yellow leaves in the de- serted park, contemplating the dusty swans with both hands resting on the silver handle of his cane, thinking about death. On his fust visit to Geneva the lake had been calm and clear, and there were tame gulls that would come to eat out of your hand, and women for hire who seemed like six-in-the- afternoon phantoms with organdie ruffles and silk parasols. Now the only possible woman, as far as he could see, was a flower vender on the deserted pier. It was difficult for him to believe that time could cause so much ruin not only in his life but in the world. He was one more incognito man in the city of illustrious incognitos. He wore the dark-blue pin-striped suit, bro- cade vest, and stiff hat of a retired mag- istrate. He had the arrogant mustache of a musketeer, abundant blue-black hair with romantic waves, a harpist's hands, with a widower's wedding band on his left ring finger, and joyful eyes. Only the weariness of his skin betrayed the state of hIs health. He was seventy-three, but even so his elegance was notable. That morning, however, he felt beyond the reach of all vanity. The years of glory and power had been left behind for- ever, and now only the years of his death remained. He had returned to Geneva after two World Wars, in search of a definitive answer to a pain that the doctors in Martinique could not identifY. He had planned on staying no more than two weeks, but had spent almost six in ex- hausting examinations and inconclusive results, and the end was not yet in sight. They looked for the pain in his liver, his kidneys, his pancreas, his prostate, wherever it was not. UntIl that bitter Thursday, when he had made an ap- pointment for nine in the morning at the neurology department with the least well-known of the many physicians who had seen him The office resembled a monk's cell, and the doctor was small and solemn and wore a cast on the bro- , , BY GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ ken thumb of his right hand. When he turned off the light, the illuminated X- ray of a spinal column appeared on the screen, but the President did not recog- nize it as his own until the doctor used a pointer to indicate the juncture of two vertebrae below the waist. "Your pain is here," he said. For him it was not so simple. His pain was improbable and devious and sometimes seemed to be in his ribs on the right side and sometimes in his lower abdomen, and often it caught him off guard with a sudden stab in the groin. The doctor listened to him without moving, the pointer motion- less on the screen. "That is why it eluded us for so long," he said. "But now we know it is here." Then he placed his forefinger on his own temple and stated with precision: "Although in strictest terms, Mr. President, all pain . h " IS ere. The physician's clinical style was so dramatic that the final verdict seemed merciful: the President had to submit to a dangerous, inescapable operation. He asked about the margin of risk, and the doctor enveloped him in indeterminacy. 'We could not say with certainty," he answered. Until a short while ago, the doctor explained, the risk of fatal accidents was great, and even more so the danger of varying degrees of different kinds of pa- ralysis. But with the medical advances made during the two wars, such fears h fh " D ' " were t Ings 0 t e past. on t worry, he concluded. "Put your affairs in order, and then get in touch with us. But don't forget, the sooner the better." It was not a good morning for di- gesting that piece of bad news, least of all outdoors. He had left the hotel very early, without an overcoat, because he saw a brilliant sun through the Window, and he had walked With measured steps from the Chemin de Beau-Soleil, where the hospital was, to that refuge for fur- tive lovers, the Jardin Anglais. He had been there for over an hour, thinking of nothing but death, when autumn began. The lake became as rough as an angry sea, and an outlaw wind frightened the gulls and made away with the last leaves. The President stood up and, in- stead of buying a daisy from the flower vender, picked one from the public flower beds and put it in his buttonhole. She caught him in the act. "Those flowers don't belong to God, Monsieur," she said in vexation. "They're . " CIty property. He ignored her and walked away with rapid strides, grasping his cane by the middle of the shaft and twirling it from time to time with a rather libertine air On the Mont-Blanc bridge, the flags of the Confederation, maddened by the sudden gust of wind, were being lowered with as much speed as possible, and the grace:fu1 fountain crowned with foam had been turned off earlier than usual. The President did not recognize his usual café on the pier, because they had taken down the green awning over the entrance, and the flower-filled ter- races of summer had just been closed. Inside, the lights burned in the middle of the day, and the string quartet was playing a piece by Mozart, full of fore- boding. At the counter the President picked up a newspaper from the pile re- served for customers, hung his hat and cane on the rack, put on his gold- rimmed glasses to read at the most isolated table, and only then became aware that autumn had arrived. He be- gan to read the international page where from time to time he found a rare news item from the Americas, and continued reading from back to front until the waitress brought him his daily bottle of Evian water. Following his doctors' orders, he had given up the habit of coffee more than thirty years before. But he had said, "If I ever knew for certain that I was going to die, I would drink it again." Perhaps the time had come. "Bring me a coffee, too," he ordered in perfect French. And specified with- out noticing the double meaning, "Ital- ian style, strong enough to wake the